Tag: Ghosn

Carlos Ghosn, chief executive officer of Nissan Motor Co., said Japan faces a “hollowing out” of its industrial base should the government fail to take steps to counter the yen’s rise.

“I have spoken to the prime minister about this directly,” Ghosn said in an interview from Rio de Janeiro yesterday after Yokohama, Japan-based Nissan announced a new $1.4 billion auto plant in Brazil. “If Japan wants employment, you’re going to have to do something about establishing a normal exchange rate.”

Nissan, Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co., Japan’s three largest automakers, are shifting production overseas as the yen’s surge erodes the profitability of building cars in their home market. The nation’s currency has risen 5.7 percent this year against the dollar and touched a postwar high of 75.95. The government, led by the Democratic Party of Japan, last intervened to weaken the yen in August.

Nissan Motor Co 7201.T Chief Executive Carlos Ghosn said the Japanese governments efforts to rein in the rise of the yen had failed, forcing manufacturers to reduce investment in Japan and shift output elsewhere.

"If the Japanese government wants to really safeguard and develop employment, then something has to be done," Ghosn told Reuters in an interview in New York. "We have been talking about this as an industry for a while. Unfortunately, it keeps happening. It looks like whatever effort has been done so far has not delivered results."

"We have to have some vision of what is going to be the exchange rate landscape," he added.